


Remember Spring Swaps Snow For Leaves

by allineedisaquill



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Bisexual Kitty (Ghosts TV 2019), Canon Gay Character, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, Realization, Repression, The Captain is Gay (Ghosts TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allineedisaquill/pseuds/allineedisaquill
Summary: Kitty and Thomas share an exchange that sends the Captain headfirst into an epiphany. Pat helps him through it.
Relationships: Pat Butcher/The Captain (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 87





	Remember Spring Swaps Snow For Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an idea by my friend @eloisetheartist - full credit to them for destroying me with this premise and encouraging me to share it with you via fanfic. I hope this is something like what you had in mind!

The truth was always bound to crash down on the Captain. He couldn’t remain an unreachable island forever, and the waters he tamed had steadily begun to lap at his shores - first just to test, and then stronger with more force. They wore down his surface like a rock in the deep, until the barrier between himself was paper-thin and one simple, well-timed moment away from breaking.

The day it did was just as ordinary as any other.

It had passed by relatively slowly, all things considered, and sitting through Thomas waxing lyrical about the profundity of his feelings for Alison wasn’t making it pass any quicker. But the Captain had done his morning rounds already and with nothing else to do for the time being, he allowed himself to quietly sit in an armchair as Thomas talked aloud to Kitty.

“If only I had met fair Alison in another time,” Thomas lamented with a sigh. “I could have given her all the love in the world.”

He watched as Kitty took Thomas’s hand and swayed them. “I know how you feel,” she said. “All the love in the world, that sounds nice.”

Thomas’s woeful expression pinched and his head tilted. In a slow voice, he asked, “Kitty, do you mean to say that your feelings… They run as deeply as mine?” There was no possessiveness in his voice, no jealousy, only friendly curiosity. “I had always wondered, but dared not ask.”

Kitty’s smile grew. “Well, yes, I suppose so,” she said, and then with more confidence, “Yes. _Yes,_ I love Alison. How could I not?”

“Indeed,” Thomas agreed. “I suppose I can hardly fault you there.” 

“I _do_ miss her so much when she’s gone,” Kitty added, and her smile slipped somewhat as her gaze fell to Thomas’s hand in hers. “I wish I could hold her hand just like this, but I’d settle for her just sitting with me more.”

They found their mutual ground, and Thomas squeezed Kitty’s hand in return.

Meanwhile, their innocent and unknowing exchange had thrown the Captain headfirst into a sudden and rather overwhelming epiphany. 

Kitty loved Alison.

She _loved_ Alison, and it wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. 

He had asked her. He himself had asked her the very same thing, and Kitty had answered as honestly then as she had now. Only the Captain hadn’t realised at the time, hadn’t grasped the weight of her admission or the simple truth of it. He’d looked right past it and refused to unpack it.

_“You love Alison, don’t you? You want her to stay?”_

He sat perfectly still on the sofa but inside he was drowning, the memory filling him like water in his lungs. Had he known the whole time in some hidden recess, some trapped corner of his mind? How could he have said it so plainly with no actual clue what he was implying? It didn’t make sense.

He blinked, and more memories broke down the confusion like a battering ram.

_“Yes, he’d make a very fine soldier.”_

_“Do you find yourself...distracted?”_

_“I shan’t miss him - them.”_

_“You must take that emotion and you must bury it, never let it out.”_

_“He left me.”_

They took no mercy as they flooded him. All at once, it was glaringly obvious, staring him in the face and just daring him to run from it the way he always had. _Suppress it,_ it whispered, _you know how. Go on, bury it, be the Captain and straighten your tie and don’t let the truth out. You’re so good at it, now._

He had known all along, albeit subconsciously, and he had seen himself in her.

It was so much. It was _too_ much. He had to get out.

So he fled to the place where it was mandatory to keep the silence, taking up the window that always seemed to bear the brunt of all their ghostly emotions. He sat in the old seat and stared out, willing himself to think of anything else, all in a vain attempt to keep what threatened to overflow at bay. He tried to stem it like an open wound on the battlefield, however much he could.

It was Button House; he should have known it wouldn’t work.

“Cap? Everything okay?”

The Captain looked away from the window to find Pat. He stood looking concerned, his hands fiddling with his scarf.

“Of course,” he lied. _You’re so good at it, now._

Pat took a seat in the window beside him. “Sure? It’s just not like you to sit here. Usually means something’s up.” He laughed, an attempt to break the ice. “Can’t tell you how many of us end up here at some point.”

He couldn’t have known that the Captain had already begun to thaw, whether he wanted to or not, the ice in him breaking apart. He felt distant, a world away from Pat and what he was saying. It was so hard to hold onto the present when his past was finally catching up with him. “Do we?” He asked, already looking through the window again.

“You can talk to me,” Pat told him quietly, and when the Captain glanced at him, he found Pat looking out of the window too. “I do care about you, you know.”

How many times had he looked at Pat? It seemed so many and it had to be, it must have been for all the years they’d known each other... Yet he apparently never had until that moment, not properly.

Despite how hard it was to believe, Pat had proven he cared with actions as well as words. From awaiting him at the end of his runs and the way he so often sought the Captain out just to sit or walk and talk, to the way he casually called on him to join the ridiculous game of Twister. Pat had even closed his eyes and swayed where he sat when the Captain sang and hummed to his heart’s content. He was always there, a steady and reassuring presence and a friend when he needed one.

Pat cared.

_But how much?_

“With all the love in the world…” The Captain only meant to mouth the words, to feel them again and perhaps understand them, but his body betrayed him - it was making a habit of that.

He knew he’d said them out loud when Pat whipped his head to look at him with a surprised, sucked-in breath. “What?” 

The Captain panicked. “Nothing.” He moved to get up. “Ignore me.”

“Don’t,” Pat said defiantly, and the Captain felt his hand close around his wrist and hold him in place. “Talk to me, please? You’re worrying me a bit, now.”

He didn’t want to talk; the Captain feared what else he might say should he open his mouth again. He closed his eyes and tried to block it all out.

Pat didn’t let go, but he loosened his grip - the Captain could have fled easily if he wanted to, but he didn’t. “Why did you say that?” Pat knew that he’d used that very phrase to the Captain the previous year, but he didn’t know why the Captain was repeating it then of all times - or even at all. It forced a swallow, but the lump in his throat didn’t leave. “Cap. Why did you say it?”

“I didn’t,” the Captain said finally, eyes open and on Pat, but not quite meeting his eye. “ _You_ did, and then Thomas did. He said it just now in the common room, and Katherine said it _back._ ”

“I’m sorry? They what?” 

“I’m _trying_ to make sense of it all, but there’s so much that I’ve never even considered. How could I have shut it all out for so long? I don’t—” 

“Hang _on,_ ” Pat said, and he let go of the Captain’s wrist so he could press a hand to his chest as if to steady him. “Slow down a minute, would you? One thing at a time, bloody hell.”

It wasn’t poor Pat’s fault that he couldn’t quite follow him. The Captain hadn’t provided the necessary context he needed, the one vital thing that strung it all together. They took a moment and Pat allowed the Captain to gather himself.

Then he tried again. “ _Why_ were they saying that? Why were they talking about love? Has something happened between them?” He looked rightly confused.

“ _No,_ ” the Captain said sharply, frustrated and annoyed. “Are you not paying attention, Patrick? It’s— _Christ,_ I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t know what to _say._ How do people do this? How did _you_ do it? With your wife, with anyone who came before that. How do you just _be,_ knowing everyone can see you?” It was all but a plea for help, for guidance, for something to keep him from sinking.

Pat frowned. He wanted to ask the Captain to actually explain, because for the life of him he was still lost, but he couldn’t get a word in edgeways.

“All my life. _All my life,_ Pat, and I never really knew.” There was the laugh, the answering one that had been absent when Pat had laughed before. It was a sad sound, one Pat wished he’d never heard at all. “It’s all much too late in the day.” 

The clouds parted, and a sliver of realisation shone through and managed to reach Pat. He stared. “Never really knew what?” He asked like he didn’t know the answer, because he wouldn’t assume, not when the Captain’s struggle was laid out before him. He wouldn’t be that cruel, to take it away from him at the last hurdle when it had so clearly been an uphill trek with a steep incline just to get where he was. It was the Captain’s to say and the Captain’s alone.

The Captain sighed, deflated, his shoulders lax. He looked back out and it was funny, he thought, how he’d always seemed to view life through a window. Never quite able to touch, to join in; always a degree of separation between him and his peers, his colleagues, his friends, even his family.

“Do you know?” He didn’t look back at Pat. “You must do.” Those memories plagued him too, the ones where he had let it slip without meaning to, without realising. “You _must_. I don’t think it’s escaped everyone else the way it’s escaped me. Don’t pretend it has.”

Pat shifted closer. He didn’t reach out - they didn’t even so much as touch - but his voice was impossibly gentle. “I think I do, yeah,” he admitted, like if he said it quietly it wouldn’t hit as hard. “But Cap, listen - it’s okay if you can’t say it _now,_ but I’m not going to say it for you. Don’t you think it would help if you could say it, out loud, even just to yourself?”

“I _can’t._ ” 

“I think you can, if you want to,” Pat insisted. “It’s just us and this library and last I checked, books can’t talk. I won’t either.”

The Captain laughed again, and that time it was much more sincere.

Pat smiled a bit. “You said it’s too late, but I’d beg to differ. We all end up spending longer here than we ever spent alive, so how can what we do with that time not be important, ‘ey? Of course it’s not too late. It still matters. You still deserve this.”

_“That’s where talking gets you - nowhere.”_

_“It was silly of me to suggest it, really. Lesson learnt.”_

“We’ve been over this, haven’t we?” The Captain said stubbornly. “Talking does nothing.”

“Oh, sod that,” Pat rolled his eyes, and when he shuffled closer still, he was brave enough for the both of them to reach out. He curled his fingers around the Captain’s, not quite holding his hand fully but he hoped it was enough. “We were wrong. Haven’t you worked that one out yet? It might not have stopped Fanny from falling, but it helped her anyway, didn’t it? Because she got to say something that had bogged her down for years. That should have been the lesson learnt, not that talking doesn’t help. Okay?” He squeezed the fingers in his grasp, willing him to listen.

The Captain’s gaze shifted from the gardens beyond to their hands, and Kitty’s words drifted back to him as he faintly returned the pressure. He watched how their fingers moved together. _“I wish I could hold her hand just like this, but I’d settle for her just sitting with me more.”_ They rang true in that moment. He’d longed so often for Pat’s company, more of it than he ever quite seemed to get even if it had steadily increased over the months. He swallowed sharply, too aware of the soft fat of Pat’s fingers that moulded to his own, their warmth and their kindness as they remained put.

“Perhaps there’s some merit to that. It’s not entirely untrue,” he conceded.

“You don’t have to talk,” Pat repeated. “I wouldn’t ever force you, but I’m listening if you want to get it off your chest. What did Kitty and Thomas _actually_ say that caused all of this, anyway?”

The Captain kept focus on their hands, felt the point of contact and allowed it to anchor him so he wouldn’t float away. He was so desperately afraid of floating away, and every second that passed by only made him more sure that eventually he would break apart and simply drift. “It was Katherine,” he said. “Thomas was going on, you know how he does, about his love for Alison. Only this time, Katherine, she… She said she felt the same.”

Pat’s eyebrows rose; that made _much_ more sense. “About Alison?”

There was nothing else for the Captain to say except a resigned, “Yes.”

“Right. I see.”

The Captain lifted his head and all he could do was look. Most of the time he couldn’t so much as summon the courage to glance, but he couldn’t have looked away from Pat’s face then if he tried. His world was completely tipped on its side, and that was yet more concrete proof. He searched desperately for any sign that he shouldn’t continue, that Pat didn’t like what he heard, but he found absolutely none.

_Of course you didn’t, this is Pat,_ he reminded himself.

Pat kept his fingertips hooked with the Captain’s. He did not let go. “I had wondered, you know? I had a feeling Kitty felt like that. Honestly, her and Thomas make a right pair, don’t they? Still, how can I blame them? I know what it’s like, loving someone you can’t seem to reach.” At that, his face became tinged with sadness.

The emotion was just another thing he could scarcely bear, but the Captain soldiered on, bolstered by Pat’s non-reaction and his unwavering presence. “It brought back everything, you see,” he explained with slow and careful deliberateness that betrayed his nerves with every word. He hoped his hand didn’t shake too much in Pat’s grasp. “There are all these moments in my life - dots I’ve never been able to join, for one reason or another. Things I’ve kept locked deep down. They made me think about myself in a way I never have before.”

Pat nodded, quiet and solemn. “And what way is that? If you want to say.”

His breath shuddered out. “It’s… I think I’m—”

A glass smashed somewhere distant in the house, and the sound was followed by Alison letting out a loud string of swearing that was muffled by the many walls between. From even further away, Mike shouted to her, and Alison shouted back that she was fine - it was just an old glass that had shattered, nothing more.

The Captain closed his eyes, jaw locked. “Honestly, _this house,_ ” he grit out.

He only opened them when he felt Pat’s fingers slide fully between his own until their palms pressed together.

“Cap. You were saying?” Pat encouraged him, grounding him back in place.

Just two words, those were all he had to be brave enough to say. _Focus, soldier,_ he told himself, pushing down the stubborn thoughts, the self-depreciating ones that only ever encouraged him to repress and retreat. _Just focus. It’s two words. Say them and be done with it._

“I’m gay,” he said, finally and quickly - like ripping a plaster off.

He waited for the world to stop spinning, but it didn’t.

The Captain had no idea how he was meant to feel, if he was honest with himself. He hadn’t been foolish enough to think that speaking it would solve all of his problems, but he had at least hoped some of the weight to ease from his old bones. All he felt instead were white-hot chills that left a lingering nauseousness. He couldn’t take it back and it felt awfully exposing and sickly new. The out-of-body feeling was back too, like it was someone else who had said it.

Pat’s thumb grazed his. “You okay?” He asked.

“Yes,” he answered quickly, and he knew it was the furthest thing from convincing even as he said it. He laughed but it did little to relax the searing grip of fear. “I don’t know. This wasn’t on my schedule when I woke up this morning,” he said, and he was back to not being able to look - he was vulnerable enough without risking the other man staring into his eyes and seeing other parts of him he wasn’t yet ready to share. “I rather feel like I’m about to throw up, actually.”

Pat laughed softly. “Well Kitty managed it and I don’t fancy seeing a repeat.”

The Captain wrinkled his nose. “Don’t remind me.”

A beat of silence, and then Pat said, “Right, come on. We can get out of this stuffy old library for a bit if you want. The fresh air will be nice and the sun’s out, so I bet the lake looks lovely.”

They both knew that the fresh air could do no more for them than anything else could, but the Captain had to admit that the blue skies ahead and the green grass underfoot did wonders to undo the knot in his stomach. Spring at Button House always brought with it a quiet semblance of hope, and his patrols of the grounds became more frequent when there were fresh, vibrant flowers to admire. Pat was right, too; the lake looked heavenly, the afternoon sun hitting the calm waters until they shone.

Pat dropped to the grass and patted the space beside him. “Park your bum.”

He did as he was told for once.

“It’s a good job my uniform can’t get grass stains,” he remarked drily, but there was a smile that tugged his lips up as he gazed out at the water. He stretched his legs out, mirroring Pat’s position, and released a small noise of content as his joints eased.

There was birdsong on the air and a gentle breeze that made ripples on the water. Even though the Captain knew he couldn’t leave those grounds, it was freeing all the same to focus on something other than himself, to see the small waves lap at the lake’s banks. Everything seemed to stretch for miles, green meeting blue on the horizon, and it put him in perspective in a way that was comforting rather than existential; he found it difficult for his feelings to hold the same weight when being reminded of just how small he actually was.

Then Pat said, quietly, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

The Captain raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “And who said I’m ashamed?”

“I dunno. I’m just saying, you know.” Pat shoved his glasses up and frowned. “I heard all sorts growing up, saw people filled to bursting with fear and ignorance. Suppose I just wanted you to know that none of what they say is true.”

It was a welcome reassurance, even if shame hadn’t quite entered the equation for the Captain - at least not in the sense of him wishing he was different. The only shame he felt was the shame of not realising it sooner, of feeling like a fool left in the dark when everyone else apparently knew how to turn on the light.

Still, the Captain’s chest constricted. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s...very kind.”

Pat smiled at him then. “‘Course.” He squinted for a moment in the sunlight that glared on his glasses, then he looked away with a smile that verged on bashful. “And I meant it, you know. Before.”

He was lost. The Captain searched his face. “Meant what?”

“All the love in the world,” Pat said, like it was the truest thing in the world.

Maybe it was. Maybe it was just another thing he’d missed. “Oh.”

Pat laughed and bumped their shoulders together softly, and if he shuffled nearer in the process then neither of them mentioned it.

They went back to watching the water and the Captain felt himself relax for the first time since it had all transpired.

For a while, that’s all there was - just the two of them and the sound the warm breeze made as it cut through the grass and the leaves on the trees. The Captain remembered the winter before, the snow that had whipped around the house and covered the grounds and frozen the lake near solid. It was hard to picture it then with so much colour and life before him, but even the longest winters ended and the thickest ice thawed. It was the way of things, and it was all so very relevant in a way that made him want to roll his eyes and chide it.

Instead, he simply smiled to himself and crossed his legs at the ankle.


End file.
